Crude oil continues to slide - WTI now -3.8% at $45.27/bbl, and Brent -3.8% at $46.40/bbl - dragging oil and gas equities (XLE-2.1%) down with it.

Iran's oil minister says he is not prepared to reduce supply, and Saudi Arabia says it would not participate in a production deal without Iran and Iraq.

Reuters reports that Iran has written to OPEC saying Saudi Arabia needs to cut oil output to 9.5M bbl/day; Saudi has said it was prepared to reduce its production only by 500K bbl/day from current levels of 10.5M.

Crude oil prices are lower ahead of what some see as a make-or-break OPEC meeting.

Though OPEC already agreed in principle to cap output at 32.5M to 33M barrels a day, the details that emerge from the November 30 gathering and Russia's stance after the OPEC decisions are announced will be crucial.

The oil market is poised for volatility next week with managed short positions on many WTI and Brent contracts standing at record levels.

The clean energy sector may get a boost after President-elect Donald Trump told the NYT he thinks "there is some connectivity" between humans and climate change, stating he was keeping an "open mind" on whether to pull out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Meanwhile, Ben Carson has been offered the post of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The former Republican presidential candidate said he'll consider the offer over Thanksgiving.

The Obama administration says it is blocking the sale of new offshore oil and gas leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas north of Alaska for the next five years.

Interior Secretary Jewell says the move strikes the right balance by sustaining oil and gas development in the Gulf while blocking activity in remote and fragile Arctic waters that could be devastated by an oil spill.

The expected move is part of a sprint to release rules before Pres. Obama leaves office, and it likely will be reversed by the incoming Trump administration.

The U.S. Arctic is estimated to hold 27B barrels of oil and 132T cf of natural gas, but energy companies have struggled to tap resources buried below the icy waters.

Environmental activists including billionaire Tom Steyer are applying increasing pressure on the Obama administration to use an obscure 1953 law to permanently ban drilling off the U.S. Atlantic and Arctic coasts.

The move would invoke provision 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which has been used to preserve coral reefs and walrus feeding grounds, and could be permanent without Congressional revocation of the authority.

Not all environmentalists agree that invoking 12(a) is a good idea, since the action could provoke Republicans in Congress into repealing the law entirely so it could not be used to protect environmentally sensitive areas in the future.

The department's Bureau of Land Management says the rule, updating 30-year-old regulations that govern flaring, venting and natural gas leaks from oil and gas production, could avoid wasting up to 41B cf/year of natural gas.

The rules are aimed at helping meet an Obama administration goal of cutting the oil and gas industry’s emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, by as much as 45% from 2012 levels over the next decade.

WTI crude oil -2.9% to settle at $45.34/bbl, its lowest since Sept. 27, and Brent crude -2.7% to $46.86, also its lowest since late September.

“You could easily make the argument it’s the most bearish report of all time,” says Bob Yawger, director of the futures division of Mizuho Securities USA. “There’s nothing to support the market.”

WTI, which already was turning lower in recent days, has now fallen 12% in just two weeks since hitting a one-year high on Oct. 19 and marks the third retreat from $50/bbl toward $40 within five months.

“Russia is ready to join in joint measures to limit output and calls on other oil exporters to do the same,” Putin said today at the World Energy Congress in Istanbul. “We think that a freeze or even a cut in oil production is probably the only proper decision to preserve stability in the global energy market.”

Also, Saudi Arabian energy minister Khalid al-Falih said he was optimistic that oil producers could agree to cut production by November and "it is not unthinkable" that crude prices could rise another 20% this year to $60/bbl.

The 2015 Paris Agreement negotiated by more than 200 countries to cap emissions and curb the global rise in temperatures will go into force on Nov. 4 after the pact reached the threshold necessary to formally take effect.

The treaty doesn't legally require countries to curb emissions or take other steps on climate change, but it does require countries to release their targets and report emissions.